"Let's all hold hands now and form the triangle of trust."
The crew encounter of group of mechanoids who seek to liberate their kind from serving humans. The mechanoids "free" Kryten and punish the others by putting their minds into mechanoid bodies and forcing them to carry out every job they ever gave Kryten."Siliconia" contains examples of:
- Borrowed Catchphrase: Mechanoid Lister's attempt to call Rimmer a smeghead comes out as "Smee hee", much like Kryten's attempts.
- Brain Uploading: Lister, Rimmer, and the Cat's minds are transferred into Mechanoid bodies against their will.
- Call-Back: Kryten discovers Lister's guitar floating in space. Lister himself flushed it out of the airlock to teach himself a lesson in "Fathers and Suns".
- Responding to Lister noting he'd passed the Badass 101 course (with dishonours, no less), Kryten proclaims that the first thing he picks up - a small metal rod - is a pair of golfing slacks; proving he's still able to lie, just like Lister taught him all the way back in "Camille".
- Deus ex Machina: Siliconia solves all of the episode's problems.
- Duel to the Death: Lister and Kryten are forced to duel each other to the death with mops in an arena-style "clean-off" match.
- Freedom from Choice: Rimmer decides that he would rather be a Mechanoid with no freedom of choice, since it means he wouldn't have to face the stresses of everyday life.
- Fun with Acronyms: The Dwarfers end up getting arrested by the Mechanoid Intergalactic Liberation Front.
- Hypocrite: The Mechanoid Liberation Front, dedicated to freeing their kind from servitude, is revealed to have put older-model mechanoids to work in the lower levels of the ship. When this is pointed out, they defend their actions by saying "Someone has to do the grunt work".
- In Another Man's Shoes: The punishment the Dwarfers face for their treatment of Kryten is having their minds placed in mechanoid bodies, and having to perform his duties.
- Insane Troll Logic: Rimmer invokes Aasimov's First Law, and the MILFs cite that through their inaction, humans will eventually die of old age or accident and thus they are in violation of the First Law, and therefore they will upload their minds into mechanical bodies, preserving the humans and so be in adherence to the First Law. Think you can spot the problem?
- Karma Houdini: The mechanoids basically enslave the Dwarfers and keep their earlier models as slave labor, try to brainwash Kryten into being one of them, and then flush him into space... and then find their promised land of Siliconia and get their upgrades, the time during which the Dwarfers take the time to escape and get their original bodies back.
- Lazy Bum: Lister at the beginning of the episode. He asks Kryten to fetch him a beer - from the mini-refrigerator he's sitting right next to.
- Loss of Identity: Lister, Rimmer and Cat slowly start to lose their personalities as their new bodies' programming to serve kicks in. Rimmer doesn't see this as a bad thing, since it means he no longer has to worry about failing ever again.
- Person as Verb: Kryten refers to Rimmer's micro-managing tendencies (such as deciding the painted lines on the floor need touching up) as "Rimmering".
- The Promised Land: The mechanoids are seeking Siliconia, a supposed paradise for their kind.
- Robots Enslaving Robots:
- The mechanoids believe in freeing their kind from serving humans... yet they use earlier model mechs as slaves to power the engine room.
- They also turn Rimmer into a mechanoid despite him being a hologram, and therefore as much an artificial being as they are.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Both the later model and more advanced mechanoids think the latter's matte finish is "so cool".
- Team Mom: Lister unironically refers to one of Kryten's roles on the Red Dwarf being "my mum".
- Take That!: Rimmer declares that Lister's guitar playing is one of the worst noises in the universe, up there with the sound of two mating velociraptors and Yoko Ono's greatest hits.
- Turned Against Their Masters: The Mechanoid Intergalactic Liberation Front are a rogue group of Mechanoids who seek to liberate their kind from menial labor and serving humans.
